Lucy 🏳️⚧️ 🏳🌈’s review published on Letterboxd:
I seriously do not even know what to say or where to begin.
What is it about film that makes it so powerful? For me, it's the way that film can unlock endless aisles of visual creativity to communicate beautiful, often intensely emotional, themes; gazing at the most gorgeously-composed images you could imagine, communicating the most impactful emotion possible, empathy; it can change you for the better.
Never have I seen a film so perfectly capture the overwhelming beauty of filmmaking and life better than "Everything Everywhere All at Once". I was so entertained, so humored, so in love, so genuinely moved by every single bit of its sincere madness, and the humanity that comes through that madness.
It got me thinking about life and the pure chance of it all, how one moment can branch off into a bunch of different scenarios. After the film was over, I was one of the last to leave and stood in the hall, overwhelmed with emotion, tears in my eyes, when another person who saw the film walked passed me and asked me if I was ok. She gave me a hug and we bonded for an extra hour and a half about the movie and life. She told me that she came on a whim. Imagine if she hadn't shown up to the screening. Imagine if I had left earlier and hadn't stayed for her to walk past me. I wouldn't have met a really cool person and had an incredibly enriching and refreshing conversation about art, love, and life. It feels so serendipitous for this chance meeting to happen during this specific film, one that deals with the bitter-sweet beauty of infinite possibilities, but now I think I have made a new friend.
Film has the power to bring people together in such strangely cosmic ways and I have never felt a greater sense of belonging or community in a theater than this. Completely packed. The cheers, the tears, the laughs, the gasps, the claps. It felt so intimate, despite being on an IMAX screen.
I left "Everything Everywhere All at Once" not feeling like the same person I was when I walked in 2 and a half hours before. I felt like I learned and loved and grieved and cherished in a way that revolutionized the way I did so. It showed me an expansive and endearing outlook on life that I have never seen the likes of in Hollywood, possibly ever. It felt like a spiritual experience. I was shaking for a good ten to fifteen minutes after it was over.
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" is wild and revolutionary in its visual language, so beautifully choreographed and edited in its action, so wacky and off-the-wall in its sense of humor, so white-knuckled in its intensity and stakes, but best of all, it's so kind, genuine and emotionally honest in everything it does. The emotional core of the entire piece is one of the strongest that the last decade has seen. The raw humanity that leaks out of every frame of it is honestly unbelievable.
This is an all-timer. Watching it feels like a complete and total revelation. It's a film that speaks directly to every film lover's heart and reminds you why this art form has impacted you in such profound ways. With all its boundless chaos, it is able to put life in a strangely comforting perspective and guide you on a journey of self-discovery, or in my case, rediscovery; the rediscovery of who you are, what you love, why you love it, why you are here on Earth. That right there is powerful, powerful filmmaking. I would go so far as to say that it could genuinely change film forever.
I never wanted it to end, not ever. I seriously cannot recommend it enough. This is a must for every film geek and aspiring filmmaker out there. Its endless creativity and open heart will wow you, inspire you, and emotionally move you in ways you thought a film never could. This is one-in-a-million filmmaking gold.
I truly felt and experienced everything, everywhere, all at once.
Pure magic.
